by Nancy Warren
His first function was a ribbon-cutting at a seniors’ residence that had been badly damaged during a recent fire.
For a second he contemplated canceling, then paused, as he imagined Briana must have done, and considered the importance of his presence. Patrick wasn’t any Roosevelt or Churchill; he was the mayor of a city of eighty-five thousand. However, he was still a politician and a community leader. He’d always admired men who set an example of integrity and cheer when times were tough.
And times in Courage Bay were tough indeed.
This seniors’ residence was symbolic of the city. It had been hurt, but like the people who lived here, it had come through the bad times. And Patrick needed to be there to help celebrate that fact. Besides, he’d given his word to the organizers that he’d attend, and he didn’t like going back on his word.
Other than that, Briana had managed to clear his calendar. She’d penciled in a couple of suggestions, though. A rescheduled meeting with Max being one of them.
He nodded, even though there was no one in the room to see. One of the many things he liked about Briana was her initiative. She’d become more than an assistant to him in the past couple of months. She was more like a partner, and it bothered him that he was getting credit for a lot of her work.
Even if he didn’t have his own reasons for doing so, he’d be trying to help her move up to a position where she could shine and have a chance to use her talents to their fullest.
“Patrick?”
He glanced up sharply and there she was in the doorway. Her tone was almost hesitant as she stood there, and once more that arc of heat stretched between them when their gazes locked.
“Briana…” His own voice came out husky.
“I…um…” She made a motion to push her hair back behind her ear, obviously forgetting that her hair was tied back. He liked her uncertainty; it made him hope she’d been as deeply affected by last night as he had. She dropped her hand when she realized her hair was already neatly tied behind her head and said, “I scheduled a meeting with Dan Egan for ten-thirty this morning.”
He nodded and watched her walk forward and take his schedule, then write in the meeting and the location. Dan’s office. Good. It would give him a chance to check on Shannon, see how she was doing after last night’s fatal blaze.
Briana passed him his copy of his schedule, and he thought the computer printout trembled slightly in her hands. As he took it from her, he caught a faint whiff of lavender.
“About your ribbon-cutting at noon,” she began.
“You were absolutely right to leave it scheduled. I’m damn sick and tired of putting off celebration in this town. Besides, I said I’d go and I stick to my word.”
She blinked at him and he grinned. “Sorry, I probably sound like my dad, but he always taught us never to lie, and never to go back on our word. I try to follow those rules.”
There was a crease between her brows as though she didn’t believe him. Or maybe she was worrying about him making both the meeting and the ribbon-cutting when things were so crazy.
“I believe in telling the truth, too,” she said softly. “But sometimes people can make mistakes. I think if a person does that, they should speak up and rectify the situation, don’t you?” Her eyes burned with a significance he couldn’t interpret.
He nodded, wondering what she was getting at.
“If a person’s hurt another person, they should admit that, even if it’s difficult at the time,” she elaborated.
She wasn’t speaking rhetorically here. He felt quite sure she was sending him a message.
Suddenly he felt as though the building might be experiencing another aftershock. The world didn’t seem stable beneath his feet.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked urgently. He’d been so eager last night, so lost in lust and, frankly, so out of practice that maybe he’d done something to hurt her. If so, he’d never forgive himself.
Her cheeks flamed. “No. Of course you didn’t hurt me.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Forget I spoke. I was speaking in general terms.” She pulled away from the desk and would have moved on to the next item of business, of which he knew there was plenty, but he stopped her.
“Briana, we can’t pretend nothing happened last night. I think we should talk about it.”
Amusement flickered across her face and caused her eyes to twinkle. “We should talk about it is supposed to be the woman’s line.”
“Well, based on the way you’ve reverted to all business, I’m guessing I’d wait a long time for you to open the subject.”
She huffed out a breath and he saw for a moment the vulnerability and sadness behind the external efficiency.
“I don’t think this is the appropriate time or place for such a discussion.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she went on. “What happened was-”
“Incredible.”
Warmth lit her eyes as she gazed at him briefly, before returning her attention to the printed schedule in her hand. “Yes. It was. But it was also-”
“Inappropriate. I know that, Briana. But the thing is, it happened, and all the pretending in the world won’t make it un-happen.”
“No.”
“I want to see you again,” he said urgently.
She looked at him as though that was bad news for some reason. “You do.”
“Damn right I do. Maybe nights like that happen all the time for you, but they don’t for me.” He might be out of practice sexually, but he knew damn well that it wasn’t just the sex but the intimacy, the…something special between them that had made it such a stand-out experience. He doubted very much that she’d ever had a night like that any more than he had.
“No-”
“I didn’t think so. The thing is-”
His phone began to shrill. Even as he told her to leave it, she was leaning over him to pick up the receiver. “Mayor’s office.”
He watched, frustrated, as she said, “Right. Yes. Of course. I’ll tell him.”
But her next words pushed all thoughts of his personal life out of his head. Briana looked sad and troubled. “Patty Reese, the woman from the basement suite fire, died in hospital this morning.”
“Shit.”
“Yes.”
For now, Patrick realized, he and Briana were going to have to put their personal lives aside and concentrate on running this town.
Briana left and he spent the next hour returning calls, making a statement for the paper, and going over his notes for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. But he was thinking of his sister Shannon ’s exhausted expression the night before. Of the valiant and ultimately futile effort to save Patty Reese.
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CHAPTER SIX
WHILE PATRICK was busy in his office, Briana received a call from her uncle Cecil.
“I heard about what happened last night,” he said as soon as he’d identified himself.
Her heart sank. Somehow, she’d hoped no one would find out about her forced confinement with her boss. If Uncle Cecil knew, he was no doubt wondering if she’d made good use of her time and obtained evidence to incriminate her boss.
Well, she wasn’t going to tell anyone what had happened last night. She’d been crazy to tape their lovemaking, crazier still to think she could make love with a man and then betray him.
“Look, Uncle-”
“Your aunt and I have been worried sick. Are you all right? I phoned your home first. I can’t believe you’re at work. You should go to the hospital and get checked out. I’ll come and get you.”
She smiled into the phone. He wasn’t even thinking about her mission. He was worried about her. It was nice to be fussed over, even if it was unnecessary. “I’m fine, really. I should have phoned you this morning to let you know I was all right. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d worry.”
“Of course we worry about you, honey. You’re the closest to a daughter we’ve got.”
> “I know. Thanks. But I wasn’t hurt at all in the elevator.” Well, not physically anyway. She suspected her heart might be in danger, though.
“Why don’t you come for dinner tonight. Irene will look after you. You can stay over in the guest room if you like.”
So far, she’d been careful not to be seen too much in her aunt and uncle’s company, since no one was to know about their relationship. They must really be worried about her. She was touched by their love. “I’d love to come for dinner. I’ll stay at my own place, though.”
“Whatever you say. But at least go to your doctor and make sure everything’s fine.” He blew out a breath. “When I think of what could have happened if that cable had snapped…”
“It didn’t, though. I’m fine. How about you? Were you both all right?”
“Oh, yes. We were watching TV and everything shook for a few seconds. That was it.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Well, thanks for calling. I’m sorry you and Aunt Irene were worried. See you tonight.”
She sat for a couple of minutes simply staring at her computer screen but not seeing it.
The tape was like an unexploded land mine sitting there in her purse. She’d been crazy to record what had happened last night. Not only crazy, but devious. She’d destroy the tape today and try to talk to her uncle at dinner about the possibility that Patrick wasn’t the one who’d set him up. In two months, she hadn’t seen him act with anything but integrity. Even last night, it had been Patrick who’d tried to call a halt to their lovemaking. She’d been the aggressor in the end. That tape was history.
She listened carefully for a minute. She could hear Patrick on the phone and knew she had time to take out the tape and destroy it.
Grabbing her bag, she dug into it. Where was the damn tape recorder?
Looking inside the bag didn’t help. Had the recorder somehow become wedged at the bottom? A flutter of panic started in her chest. She dumped her bag upside down on her desktop and shook it. A small avalanche of keys, wallet, cell phone, half a roll of mints, lip gloss and makeup bag tumbled out, along with the small silk bag that had come in so handy last night, a quarter and two pennies.
Frantic, she scrambled through the stuff. The tape recorder had to be here. She hadn’t touched it since last night.
Biting her lip, she decided it must have fallen out in her car or at home.
Her intercom buzzed. “Briana? Can you come in here for a moment?”
“Sure.” She shoved everything back into her bag and tucked it out of sight, then took her notebook and entered the adjoining office. Patrick was behind the desk, working up some notes in his angular handwriting.
“Can you organize an emergency council meeting for tonight?”
“Tonight?” she asked. After stonewalling Patrick’s efforts to increase the emergency team’s budget, council might be more receptive after this latest disaster. But calling a meeting the day after was almost unheard of.
“It’s important.”
“Yes. Of course,” she said. “Seven o’clock?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Make it eight. I’ve barely seen my kids in the last week.”
She nodded, hearing the bleakness in his voice and doing her best to offer comfort. “At least you let them call you at work when they need you. A lot of fathers wouldn’t do that.”
He made a sound of irritation in his throat. “A lot of fathers would see their kids more than an hour a day, too. If it weren’t for our housekeeper, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“Isn’t there anyone else who could help out? Family?”
“My family do their best, but they’re all busy, too. My wife’s parents retired to Florida. We see them a couple of times a year, but they’re not close enough to be much help.” He forced a smile. “We do okay. Once things settle down around Courage Bay, my job will be a lot easier.”
With a soundless sigh, she went back to her own desk, picked up her phone and started calling the councilors. Because he was on her mind, she called her uncle, Cecil Thomson, first.
When his secretary at the bank answered, she was put right through. “Yes, Briana,” her uncle replied. “What can I do for you?”
“The mayor has called an emergency council meeting tonight at 8:00 p.m.”
“I see. What’s this all about?”
Briana knew her uncle’s secretary must be in the room, or he would have grilled her further. “I’ll be faxing out an agenda later this afternoon.”
“Well…” She knew her uncle wanted to refuse, not only because he hated the mayor but because he’d have phoned Aunt Irene immediately to let her know Briana was coming for dinner.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I had dinner plans, but I guess I’ll have to cancel them…?”
“I think that would be best,” she agreed, knowing she’d be busy putting together info packets and preparing for the council meeting. She’d be lucky to get dinner at all.
Briana was on the phone with Councilor Gwendolyn Clark a short time later, when Patrick strode out of the office, pulling on his jacket as he went. He waved goodbye, and she raised her hand back at him, then watched hungrily as he left, trying not to remember what that tall, athletic body had felt like last night.
Please, let him be innocent so I can love him. The direction of her thoughts almost caused her to fall out of her office chair. Love? What was wrong with her? Patrick was a nice man and a wonderful lover. But who said anything about love?
PATRICK WALKED down the main stairs at city hall deep in thought. He’d gone over the city budget again this morning. He bet he knew that complex document as well as the city treasurer did. There was money available. Courage Bay wasn’t bankrupt. They had a couple of million in secured savings. There was no specific purpose for the money; it existed so that Courage Bay would never go bankrupt, and to cover any extraordinary expenses.
Well, if bumping up the emergency forces after the year they’d had wasn’t an extraordinary need, Patrick didn’t know what was. The money was set up as a trust, designed to be pilfer-proof and wisely spent. A one hundred percent yes vote by council was required before any expenditure could be approved. In order to draw more than half a million dollars from the fund in any one year, a city plebiscite was required, a referendum whereby the citizens of Courage Bay could decide how they wanted their money spent.
He intended to try one more time at tonight’s meeting to get the full vote of council to free up some of those funds for the emergency teams.
The noise of a power drill reminded him that the elevator repairs were under way. He headed over for a second to see how they were going. Bert was there and obviously knew one of the two men at work. “Here’s the man who spent several hours in your fine elevator last night,” Bert joked as Patrick came closer.
He nodded to both men. The one who’d been chatting with Bert said, “Well, you were never in any danger. We’ve checked the elevator out thoroughly. Should have it back in operation within the hour.”
Bert crossed the foyer to speak to a passing file clerk and Patrick thanked the two men for their quick response time. “No problem,” said Bert’s acquaintance, turning back to his drill.
The second man emerged from inside the elevator and said, “Did Bert say you were the guy stuck in here last night?”
“That’s right,” Patrick confirmed.
“This must be yours, then,” the worker said, holding out a small silver tape recorder.
“Yes it is.” Patrick recognized the small recorder. “It must have fallen out of my briefcase.”
The elevator repairman handed the tape recorder over and Patrick dropped it into his case. With a final thanks to the two men and a wave to Bert, he headed out for his meeting with Dan Egan.
Since he fully believed that part of his job was to be a leader in times of crisis, Patrick stowed his grim mood as he pulled up in front of the Jefferson Avenue firehouse and got out of his car.
“Hey, Patrick!” he was hailed by Louis Alv
arez, an engineer with squad two.
After joking for a few minutes with Louis and his squad members, Patrick said, “Came to see the chief.”
“He’s in his office.”
That was unusual. Dan Egan was more of a man’s man than a paper-pusher, and whenever possible, he preferred to be out with his men and away from his desk. As Patrick looked around at the faces of the firefighters, he saw how fatigued they all appeared and was determined to get the funding that would lighten their load.
“Where’s my kid sister?” he said, already having noted that Shannon wasn’t out front.
“I saw her with Bud Patchett a couple minutes ago.”
He nodded. If she’d been trapped by the garrulous firehouse mechanic, it could be days before anyone saw her. For a second Patrick missed the camaraderie and hard physical work of the firehouse. The blazes these guys fought were real smoke-and-flame jobs, not the insidious political fires that wasted so much of Patrick’s time and energy.
Shaking off the momentary nostalgia, he made his way back to his former office, which looked almost exactly as it had in his day, except the pictures of Janie and the kids were gone, and it was a different guy behind the desk.
At the moment, though, Dan Egan wasn’t behind his desk. He was standing with Sam Prophet and both men looked grim.
“What’s up?” Patrick asked as he entered the room.
Chief Egan, a Texan with a big smile and a hearty laugh, didn’t offer a hand to shake or an easy word, merely an unsmiling nod.
Sam Prophet, the arson investigator, didn’t look any happier.
Patrick got a bad feeling in his gut. Taking his cue from the heavy atmosphere in the room, he closed the office door behind him.
“You said you had something important to discuss?” Patrick asked.
“That’s right,” Chief Egan said. “Show him, Sam.”
Prophet reached onto the desk for a plastic evidence box and handed it to Patrick.
He looked inside, careful not even to breathe on the twisted and charred scraps of plastic inside. A bit of charred wire also sat in the box.
“The remains of a cell phone,” Prophet said in a clipped tone. “I found it this morning when I went through the basement suite that burned down last night. This is what caused the fire that killed Patty Reese. Someone packed the phone with explosives, and then dialed the number, setting off the device.”
